“I do not anticipate any effects of that kind, to-night, Mrs. Perry,” Wolverton replied frigidly. “And, by the way, I should be glad if you could let me have dinner half an hour earlier, this evening. After these annoying disturbances, I may not be able to settle down again until I have dined, and I shall work longer afterwards to make up for lost time. Can you arrange that?”
“Yes, sir,” gasped Mrs. Perry. “Then, you don’t believe, sir—”
“I do not,” Wolverton returned with the dignity of the assured. “You may lock the outer doors, if it gives you any sense of security. I shall expect dinner in half an hour from now.”
Mrs. Perry returned to the kitchen greatly comforted by her master’s magnificent confidence. She told William that things were not so bad as he was afraid of! And William in his turn derived a sense of security from the knowledge that he was living in the house of Henry Wolverton.
Nevertheless, they locked and bolted all the doors with a fine attention to detail.
Henry Wolverton worked rather intermittently after dinner that night. He was not disturbed by any noises from without. London was quieter than he had ever known it. He could hear no sound of traffic either along Bloomsbury Street or Tottenham Court Road. No paper boys came. No one passed his window. He could not even hear the sound of the policeman on his beat. But he found the absence of noise on this occasion more disturbing than the presence of it would have been. He found himself hailed out of his profoundest efforts of attention by his consciousness of this abiding, deathly silence. He would discover himself, sitting idly, listening to the stillness of the night.
A little after twelve o’clock, he got up and went to the front door. And after he had somewhat impatiently unlocked it, drawn back the bottom bolt and the top bolt, released the night latch, and undone the chain, he opened the door and stood on the top step, looking out over the darkness of the Square. After a moment or two, he realized with a little shock of dismay why the Square looked unfamiliar to him. The street lamps had not been lighted. Only a clear and brilliant moon in its second quarter, brooded over the unprecedented silence; weakly illuminating the apparently deserted city....
The thin scream of fear that suddenly pierced the stillness, came with an effect of audacious irreverence.
Henry Wolverton stiffened and a cold thrill of apprehension ran down his spine.
The scream was succeeded by a faint, eager patter of hurrying feet; and then more distantly, by the brutal intrusion of hoarse shouts, and the clutter of heavy boots vehemently running.